If you read the newspapers, the De Blasio administration and Chancellor, Carmen Farina, will crow about how suspensions are decreasing and criminal arrests are way down from the Bloomberg years. What both the Mayor and Chancellor fail to explain is the reductions are based upon policy changes and lax discipline procedures, not because the schools are a safer place for children. Last school year the head of the school safety agents pointed out how weapons confiscated at school never seem to show up in the statistics. Instead, the schools have been told to use restorative justice techniques or issue warning cards instead of suspensions or arrests. In fact, the DOE has told principals not to include the "warning cards" and marijuana offenses in the OORS discipline report. Obviously, to hide the truth about crime and drugs in the schools.
The Mayor and Chancellor simply made it more difficult for principals to suspend misbehaving and dangerous students and discouraged arrests. This does not make schools any safer and probably makes them less safe as these students remain in the school to disrupt, threaten, and intimidate other students and staff. See Flushing High School.
Just take a look at what has happen the last week. First, at Richmond Hill High School, a Renewal School, there was a gang fight. See the YouTube video. The school is one of the schools cited by the New York Post as having the most student crimes. is it any wonder that the head of the School Safety Agents told PIX11 that the Mayor is covering up crime and violence at the schools because he wants to show progress in an election year.
Yesterday, a student was knifed at John Browne High School. Yes the same High School that has been in the news for the Principal Howard Kwait who has had another lawsuit filed against him by his Assistant Principal. You can read more about Principal Howard Kwait Here. Yet Mr. Kwait still is the Principal, go figure.
The Mayor and the Chancellor may continue to manipulate the student crime and violence statistics but the truth is that the school are not becoming safer just because they want it to be.